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Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine

Verbe égal au Très-Haut

Gabriel Faure 1864 — Gabriel Fauré, 1864

I love the Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Fauré, Op. 11. In French, of course. The problem singing it that it’s so beautiful that I have to fight back breaking into tears.

“The text, ‘Verbe égal au Très-Haut’ (‘Word, one with the Highest’), is a French paraphrase by Jean Racine of a Latin hymn… The nineteen-year-old composer set the text in 1864–65 for a composition competition at the École Niedermeyer de Paris, and it won him the first prize.

“The work was first performed the following year on 4 August 1866 in a version with an accompaniment of strings and organ.”

In my church, the members may ask the choir if it would sing at a funeral. This was the case in mid-September. The member’s father had died, in his 90s. Although the now-deceased had an ambivalence about religion and God, he specifically requested that his service be held in his son’s church.

The music staff had offered five suggestions of appropriate pieces in the choral repertoire. Jean Racine was one. Another one, which was also selected, was the final movement, In Paradisum, from Fauré’s Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, composed between 1887 and 1890. Jean Racine is similar in style to the Requiem, and “the two works are often performed together.” I’ve sung the entire Fauré Requiem at least twice.

BRAHMS

I wonder if one of the other pieces recommended, but not chosen, for the service came from a piece from Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms. The Fauré Requiem resembles it in structure, “although Fauré set Latin liturgical texts to music, whereas Brahms chose German Bible quotations.”

The fourth Brahms movement, How lovely is thy dwelling place, in English, is a funeral standard. One of my friends from my former church I know has specifically requested it for his service. If invited, I would surely sing it, hopefully, years from now.

LISTEN

Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine
Fauré: In Paradisum from the Requiem
Brahms: How lovely is thy dwelling place from the German Requiem

Les Green was a “rare folk singer”

I figured Ed Link and Les Green met at one of Link’s business locations by the airport or maybe elsewhere, or through Link’s involvement with his charitable foundation

Les Green is rare folk singer I will always remember a visit c. 1985 I made to Charlotte, NC, where my late dad Les Green lived since 1974. I was SHOCKED to discover that he talked about me to his colleagues about how smart I was, how I would look up things I didn’t know. He talked about me? He LIKED my intellectual curiosity? I had always thought that it had annoyed him.

It was an intellectual curiosity that led me to this photo. You may recall this post from February, featuring a photo of my late mother, my sister Marcia and me standing in the driveway of 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton, NY. It was almost certainly taken by my dad.

I posted the photo on one Facebook group, trying to identify the building in the background. It is a red brick factory that never had particularly identifiable signage that my sisters and I could recall. I since learned that early in the 20th century, it was the home of Star Electric. In 1918 it became Barnes-Smith Co. cigar manufacturers. After being the Bonnie Silk Mill in the 1920s and ’30s, it was one of the first plants of Link Aviation.

WHAT? My father often spoke of his admiration of and affection for Ed Link, who was “a pioneer in aviation, underwater archaeology, and submersibles. He is best known for inventing the flight simulator, commercialized in 1929.”

I figured they met at one of his locations by the airport or maybe elsewhere, or through Link’s involvement with the charitable foundation he and his wife started. Could they have met on the street where I lived?

In the comments, a woman named Kathi, who had attended the same church I did, posted “this awesome pic that was in the Binghamton Press of your dad, me, and my cousin Butch.” My father cropped this specific photo and used it in fliers promoting his singing gigs in the area for a number of years.

My curiosity about the factory across the street led to the source of the graphic for the Les Green one-man PR machine. Dad would have been 93 tomorrow.

Louisiana perishes; I mean parishes

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Louisiana parish map The August 20, 2019 comic strip Pearls Before Swine has a Louisiana joke. Pig is explaining to Goat about studying the state’s administrative map for a class. Pig worries about what happens to a couple counties if the Mississippi River floods.

Goat: Parishes
Pig: That poor county
Goat: Never mind

Yes, Louisiana has parishes as its primary substate division, whereas most US states have counties. This is as a result of the state’s heavily Roman Catholic influenced past when it was controlled by France or Spain.

Laissez les bon temps rouler! And that’s in part why there’s Mardi Gras. Let the good times roll on Fat Tuesday, before becoming solemn for Lent, starting on Ash Wednesday.

When my daughter was learning the states, she always appreciated that Louisiana was shaped like an L.

LA Louisiana. The traditional abbreviation is La. The capital is Baton Rouge; the largest city is New Orleans.

LOUISIANA, NOT HAWAII

I don’t think I’ve told this work story. In 1995, I was working for the New York Small Business Development Center. Per a contract with the Small Business Administration, we were providing business library reference for ALL the SBDCs in the country between 1992 and 1998.

Part of my job was to interact with all the statewide programs. My new boss did not seem to understand this. When she decided to go to the national (ASBDC) conference in New Orleans, she decided to bring her favored librarian, but not me. She said she couldn’t afford to have three of the seven librarians out of the office for three or four days.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend had achieved some significant designation through an insurance certification entity. She received a trip for two to Honolulu for the same time frame. She invited me, but I declined. If my boss wasn’t going to let me go to Nawlins when it was work-related, she surely wouldn’t allow me to go to Hawaii. Even asking my boss if I could go to the islands, I felt would undercut my argument that I should be going to Louisiana.

At nearly the last moment, my boss decided to allow me to go to the conference after all. This was not a function of the strength of my argument. It was her realization that she and the other librarian couldn’t possibly carry all the material she wanted to bring. In other words, I got the chance to actually do my job because I could schlep stuff.

It has been the only time I’ve been to Louisiana. I ended up having les bon temps, even though it WASN’T Mardi Gras.

There are a LOT of songs about the state and its largest city. Here are only a couple.
Goin’ Back To New Orleans – the late, great Dr. John
Louisiana 1927 – Randy Newman

L is for Louisiana for ABC Wednesday

Bruce Springsteen turns 70

“the writer has made one promise”

When Bruce Springsteen made the covers of the magazines TIME and Newsweek in the same week in 1975, I thought his career was pretty much doomed.

I became even more convinced when it took nearly three years between his third album, Born to Run, and Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Bruce put out a double album, The River, in 1980, which actually has a Top 10 single. So naturally, he follows it with the fine, if stark Nebraska, which did OK commercially.

Then the massive commercial and artistic album Born in the USA in 1984. Bruce had to tell Ronald Reagan’s people that the title track does not mean what they thought it meant. There were SIX Top 10 singles from that collection and regular play on MTV, when that was something.

AFTER “THAT” ALBUM

Naturally, Springsteen followed that with a FIVE-ALBUM collection, maybe a tad excessive, but with another charting single. But it’s interesting that after that, he became less the guy with the hits, and more the album-driven artist.

If you exclude live albums and compilations, all of Springsteen’s albums released between 2002 and early 2014 went to #1 on the Billboard charts. That exception was We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions which “only” went to #3. I thought that album a bit too reverent. But the Live Dublin albums, with many of the same musicians and songs, that came out the next year, was loads of fun.

I’ve only seen him perform once. I say “only” because he’s been in the area regularly. His three-hour shows are legendary.

Bruce performed his one-man Broadway show that was well received. He wrote an autobiography, Born to Run. He says, “Writing about yourself is a funny business. But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.”

Now his new album, Western Stars, is going to be a movie. Bruce Springsteen IS The Boss.

SOME SONGS

Spirit in the Night, 1973
Rosalita, 1973
Born to Run, #23 in 1975
Jungleland, 1975

The Promised Land, 1978
Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978
Hungry Heart, #5 in 1980
The River, 1980
Atlantic City, 1982

Pink Cadillac, 1984
Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart, 1985
We Are the World – USA for Africa, #1 for four weeks in 1985
Glory Days, #5 in 1985
My Hometown, #6 in 1986
War, #8 in 1986

Brilliant Disguise, #5 in 1987
57 Channels (And Nothin’ On), #68 in 1992
Better Days, B-side of Human Touch (#16), 1992
Streets of Philadelphia, #9 in 1994, and won an Oscar

My City of Ruins, 2002; WTC benefit
Old Dan Tucker, 2006
Radio Nowhere, #102 in 2007
Outlaw Pete, 2009

His YouTube channel
Coverville 1265: Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., Covered, Track-By-Track

Bruce Springsteen turns 70 on September 23.

More music meme themes

produced by Ry Cooder

I think I’ll knock off a few of these music meme themes today.

A song that moves you forward

Whatever that means

Janis Joplin

Express Yourself – Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, #12 pop, #3 for four weeks RB in 1970. One of the few soul artists on the Warner Brothers roster at the time. This song was often covered or sampled. Famously, N.W.A sampled it for their 1989 song with the same title.” A member of N.W.A., Eazy-E, is a nephew of Wright.”

99 and a Half – Mavis Staples. From the GREAT 2007 album, We’ll Never Turn Back, produced by Ry Cooder.

A song you think everyone should listen to

I reject the premise. People should listen to whatever they want.

Crying – Roy Orbison and k.d. lang The best version, better than either of them by themselves. Damn thing makes me sob, especially when lang sings “crying” in the chorus. From the film Hiding Out, starring Jon Cryer and Annabeth Gish.

No More Tear-Stained Makeup – Martha and the Vandellas. Lyrics by Smokey Robinson. I wrote about it here.

A song by a band you wish was still together

Here’s the thing – I’m not that romantic about these things. Bands come and go. Still, I became aware that neither my wife nor my daughter was aware of the Ramones, not even this popular track played at sports arenas.

Blitzkrieg Bop – Ramones

A song you like by an artist you wish were still alive

Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin. Janis had the second posthumous #1 pop song in Me and Bobby McGee. Also from that Pearl album is a song written by the singer herself. When I was singing it on a factory floor many years ago, someone asked me if it were a song by the Temptations.

Ain’t that Peculiar – Marvin Gaye, #8 pop, #1 RB in 1965. Because it’s Marvin, with background singing, I believe, by the “no-hit Supremes.”

Nobody Told Me – John Lennon, #5 pop in 1984. My absolute favorite song from the posthumous Milk and Honey album (1984). I’ve long wondered how he and Yoko made the determination which songs went to that album and which ones to Double Fantasy (1980)